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British Columbia Frequency Modulation
Communications Association

BCFMCA DMR / MotoTRBO System

The BCFMCA is proud to be able to offer the latest and greatest digital technology
to amateur radio, welcome DMR / MotoTRBO.

What is DMR / MotoTRBO?

DMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio. DMR is an open source digital radio system that is primarily used by the land mobile radio (LMR) industry. Motorola
has marketed their implementation of DMR under the name MotoTRBO.

DMR uses Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) to accommodate two simultaneous data/voice streams on a single 12.5KHz channel.
In other words, two groups of users are able to carry out separate conversations on a single, traditional pair of repeater frequencies.
It is also possible for users to communicate on multiple talkgroups similar to trunked radio systems.

Repeater linking is also possible through Motorola's implementation of IP Site Connect (IPSC). Wherein users on one repeater
in one location can communicate to another group of users in a completely different geographical location. This is accomplished via IP and the
Internet.

Technical Details

In order to use a DMR / MotoTRBO repeater you will need a radio that supports the DMR standard. This radio needs to be configured
with a unique radio ID (RID), repeater transmit/receive frequencies, repeater color code, time slot and talkgroup ID's.

An effort has been made to coordinate all amateur radio unique radio and repeater ID's. The DMR world wide amateur radio database and ID request
form can be found here; The DMR World Wide Amateur Radio Database

DMR / MotoTRBO mobile and portable radios support the following features:

Group calling

Individual radio-to-radio calling

Talk group scanning functionality

Radio Check (i.e. see if another user has their radio turned on)

Radio-to-radio text messaging

APRS style GPS position tracking

Zero touch repeater-to-repeater roaming based on RSSI

Capable of operating on legacy analog repeaters/frequencies

Many more features and custom data applications

The BCFMCA DMR / MotoTRBO repeater

The BCFMCA has a DMR / MotoTRBO repeater on the air. The repeater is located at our Mt Seymour site.

The VE7RAG UHF DMR repeater is connected to the internet via the BC-TRBO network. The BC-TRBO network is also internetworked with the PNW, DMR-X, DMR-MARC and CAN-TRBO networks.
This connection allows users of the BCFMCA DMR / MotoTRBO repeater to communicate with DMR / MotoTRBO users on other repeaters throughout the region, country and world.

The PNW Network supports our affiliated IPSC network of MotoTRBO repeaters and their users
in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. PNW is also affiliated with the BC-TRBO network in British Columbia Canada. As of May 2017, a new repeater was installed on Lookout Mountain in the Bellingham area.
This repeater provides coverage throughout the southern slopes of Greater Vancouver, throughout Whatcom county and all the way south into Everett, WA. With the Lookout Mtn repeater finally in place, the PNW network now has nearly seamless I-5 / Highway 99 coverage
from Vancouver, BC all the way down to south of Salem, OR. More info on the Interstate 5 Talkgroup coverage can be found on the PNW I-5 page.